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How to start collecting art

The Pine Tree State, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I have a wicked TJ Maxx habit. Itā€™s all fun and games until one of my kids pulls me into the so-called ā€˜wall artā€™ section. Thatā€™s mostly dreck, and itā€™s not cheap. A savvy customer could buy real art for just a little bit more money, and end up with an asset that appreciates, rather than something destined for a landfill.

Many young people havenā€™t a clue how to start collecting art. Those of us with mature collections can help them overcome this by giving them artwork. Iā€™ve given paintings (mine and othersā€™) to each of my four children. Two buy art themselves, one is saving to build a house, and one just isnā€™t interested. Thatā€™s not a bad result.

The Road to Seward, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in the continental US.

If youā€™ve never collected paintings, here are some tips to get you started.

  1. Define your interests: Visit galleries, museums, and art fairs to see what resonates with you. Donā€™t worry overmuch about matching your dĆ©cor; that will change over time. Instead, look at the work in its own right. Is it catching your eye because of composition, content, or color?
  2. A little knowledge is an excellent thing: I have written about the basic elements of design here. An art history or art appreciation course is a great way to start developing a critical eye.
  3. Set a budget: Determine how much youā€™re willing to spend on art. You might be shocked to realize that you can build a decent art collection for the same amount you currently spend on tchotchkes, shoes, or avocado toast.
  4. Beware cheap prints: These are not to be confused with fine art prints, which are made by artists in limited editions, and works of art in their own right. Prints are cheap in the short run, but they will never appreciate in value over time.
  5. Attend art events: Go to gallery openings, auctions, and art shows. This will teach you a lot about the art world, even if the wine and cheese are terrible.
  6. Buy from emerging artists: Collecting from up-and-coming artists can be a cost-effective way to start your collection while supporting new talent.
  7. Think about where youā€™ll hang the piece: While I donā€™t think you should buy art to match your couch, some idea of where it will end up is helpful. When I was younger, my furniture was terrible, and I moved it and art around constantly. Today my furniture is mostly still terrible, but I donā€™t bother rotating it; I do still move art around.
  8. Buy one good piece rather than a lot of subpar ones: Your mother told you the same thing about shoes, and itā€™s good advice. Just as thereā€™s fast fashion, thereā€™s fast art.
  9. Write it down somewhere: Document your purchases, even if that means sticking a note in the back of the frame. Someday, the provenance of that painting might be extremely important.
  10. Stay openminded: Just as my own painting has changed over time, so has my taste in art.
Toy Reindeer with double rainbow, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, $435 framed, includes shipping in continental US.

Happy collecting!

Just a quick reminder

Artworks for Humanity to benefit Waldo County Habitat for Humanity, is tomorrow.

Hiking, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 includes shipping in continental US.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

    Why I love plein air painting

    Midsummer along the Bay of Fundy, 24×36, available.

    Given a choice of painting the same subject en plein air or in the studio, Iā€™ll always go outdoors. I think it makes for better paintings, but itā€™s also a better experience.

    In general, painting from life is superior to painting from photos. Photography works out the subject, composition and color for you, and itā€™s hard to escape its bossiness. People can work from life within the genres of still life, interiors and figure painting, but the natural world is the biggest and best source of observed reality.

    The Whole Enchilada, 12X16, oil on archival canvas, $1159 unframed.

    Full immersion

    Being surrounded by the environment that I am painting is a full sensory experience. Yes, that can include insects and jackhammers, but itā€™s more likely to include sweet smells on soft breezes and birdsong.

    For every painting location, there are many potential subjects and compositions. I once stood on a hillside and painted in each cardinal direction. I didnā€™t begin to plumb the possibilities of that site.

    Painting outdoors lets me experience natural light in its full color spectrum. Look at any photograph of a scene you know and love, and youā€™ll quickly realize how photos flatten and distort color. And painting indoors under bad lights is just horrible for your color perception.

    Iā€™ve painted in rainstorms, in withering heat and humidity, and in blasting Arctic cold. More commonly, I go out when the weather is moderate, but its changeability has taught me ways to control and adapt my painting, and above all, to work fast.

    Dawn Wind, Twin Lights, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 includes shipping and handling in the continental US.

    The great outdoors

    Being an outdoorswoman to my bones, I appreciate that plein air painting lets me work in beautiful places. Standing quietly in one place for hours allows you to see it in a different way from that of the typical tourist. People love the natural world but due to issues of time, money and mobility, they canā€™t always get to it. (I remind myself to be thankful every day I can climb Beech Hill.) Plein air painting is a way to bring nature to a world thatā€™s increasingly insulated.

    On the best of days, you can text a photo of a wood lily or an elk to a friend. Thatā€™s humbling.

    Palm Tree and Sunlight, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

    Some of my best friends are plein air painters

    I know plein air painters from all over North America. The crush of plein air events means weā€™re often thrown together in ways that forge deep friendships. I might not see them for years, but we fall back into our old rhythms of friendship very easily.

    I see this in my workshop students, too. There is something about standing on a rock with the same people for a week that fosters closeness.

    Plein air is not limiting

    Some of my friends love painting architecture; some like painting in large cities (that used to be me). Some are attracted to the bleak industrial wasteland. Some like the high desert, and others like the ocean. Iā€™m easy, myself; I love the landscape Iā€™m with. But thereā€™s no wrong subject in plein air. Beauty is everywhere, and as long as Iā€™m still mobile, Iā€™ll still seek it out.

    Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

      Should I buy a boat?

      Skylarking II, 18×24, oil on linen, $1855, includes shipping in the continental US.

      When I row in my local harbor, I always tell the person Iā€™m with, ā€œIf youā€™re looking for something for my birthday…ā€ I love rowing quietly around, lusting after sailboats. My heartā€™s desire is never a big boat, but itā€™s always beautiful, sleek and wooden. Something I can sail solo would be best.

      Of course, this is pure nonsense. The mooring fee alone would scrap my budget. Add to that the work and expense of hauling and winterizing. Iā€™m not talking through my hat here; we had a beautiful old wooden boat until I was in my late teens. Besides, my yard is already cluttered with a skiff, canoe and dinghy, none of which I have time for.

      American Eagle rounding Owls Head, 6×8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 unframed includes shipping and handling in the continental US.

      I was reminded of this the other day while listening to the podcast Ridiculous Crime. The hosts were joking that the stupidest thing to do with lottery winnings was to buy a boat. ā€œMy father always said itā€™s a hole in the water into which you pour money,ā€ said host Zaron Burnett. Iā€™ll add two more jokes to his repertoire: ā€œThe two best days in a boat owner’s life are the day he buys a boat and the day he sells it.ā€ And, ā€œa friend with a boat is better than owning a boat.ā€

      Should I buy a boat? Iā€™m afraid not, although writing this post has darn near killed me. But there are other ways to enjoy them.

      I have a friend who is a boat

      I am buddies with a very big boat, the schooner American Eagle. Not only is she the best looking schooner in the fleet, she was impeccably repurposed by Captain John Foss and maintained by Captain Tyler King.

      I get to go sailing on her once a year. Even better, my job isnā€™t night watches or deck swabbing. Instead, I teach watercolor painting. And if you go with us, you too can sail and paint and give no thought at all to cooking or polishing brightwork.

      My daughter made a beautiful short reel for Instagram that catches the essence of this trip (above). Hereā€™s another that captures a foggy day on the water. This isnā€™t sailing with carbon fiber sails that you can adjust with your key fob while surfing the web on your phone. This is sailing as itā€™s been done for centuries. Itā€™s a wooden boat with traditional rigging, and the opportunities to sail like that grow fewer and fewer.

      Hang a boat on a wall

      Drying Sails, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, $869 framed.

      Another way to enjoy sailing is with a painting. I was in an oncologistā€™s waiting room the other day (for a routine check-up) and noticed that the walls are covered with boat art. They chose boats and the sea because theyā€™re calming, and people in crisis need all the tranquility they can get. But so do you and I, every day.

      I paint boats because I love them, and because their journeys are much like our journeysā€”we go through storms, we have larky bright mornings, and we rest at anchor. I think those are all good reasons to own a boat painting. And as Zaron Burnett would probably tell you, it’ll cost you a lot less to buy a painting of a boat than to keep a real boat. The maintenance is easier, and youā€™re likely to keep it longer, too.

      Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

        What does it mean to be an artist?

        Coast Guard Inspection, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

        Being an artist means you make art, period. It doesnā€™t mean youā€™re brilliant at it, or that you make money doing it. It simply means you make art repeatedly, in an iterative process, building from one finished project to the next.

        Anyone can be an artist

        I have never heard anyone told, ever, that theyā€™re not good at the Three Rs (meaning reading, ā€™ritinā€™, and ā€™rithmatic) so they should just go do something else. We take it for granted that there are bumps in the road in every pursuit, and some aspects of these disciplines will be harder than others. Moreover, we recognize that whether we use our writing skills to analyze Tolstoy or make out a shopping list, theyā€™re useful for everyone. So how did the question of who can be an artist become so narrow?

        Beautiful Dream, oil on archival canvasboard, $1449 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

        Iā€™ve blamed the Cult of Genius for the spurious idea that the artistā€™s mind is unique. Until the 18th century, artists were craftsmen, and they trained in apprenticeships. After the Enlightenment, the arts were reclassified as an intellectual pursuit. None of my working artist friends are intellectuals in the real sense of that word. Yes, theyā€™re smart, but theyā€™re also pragmatic and hands-on.

        Why are we all so specialized?

        My daughter told me recently that my grandkidsā€™ peers donā€™t just try one activity and then another. Sandlot baseball, as we knew it, is nonexistent. Instead, kids choose a discipline almost as soon as theyā€™re up on their pins. They stick with that specialty through high school. The parents, my daughter tells me, are interested in sports scholarships.

        Early specialization leaves no time for what making art is all about: experimentation and creativity. And since there arenā€™t art scholarships the way there are sports scholarships, nobody is pushing little Minnie to stick with her crayons.

        We give lip service to the idea of developing creative kids who can ā€œthink outside the box.ā€ (Not that I believe thatā€™s what society really wants, but itā€™s what we say.) Art requires discipline, but it also encourages free-roaming thoughts.

        American Eagle in Drydock, 12X16, $1159 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

        Whatā€™s required to be an artist?

        • The ability to think imaginatively, which requires leisure time for the mind to roam.
        • The capacity to express ideas.
        • Technical proficiency, built over time.
        • Passion, because there are easier ways to spend your time.
        • A unique worldview.
        • Resilience: If you arenā€™t persistent in the face of failure, criticism and rejection, you will quit.

        What I didnā€™t list

        Note that I never mentioned talent, innate ability, or intelligence. The most successful artists are the hardest-working, full stop.

        I have a young friend whoā€™s been a journeyman photographer under the tutelage of his father for several years. I have one of his books, and itā€™s nice but not inspired. Suddenly, this year, heā€™s on fire. He may look like an instant success or a ā€˜great talentā€™ but all that rests on the thousands of photos heā€™s taken to find his artistic voice.

        Camden Harbor, Midsummer, oil on canvas, 24X36 $3188 includes shipping in continental US.

        You donā€™t have to be an artist

        Anyone can do it; that doesnā€™t mean everyone will. The steep learning curve weeds some people out; the exigencies of life limit others. And thatā€™s okay, because art needs viewers. Weā€™re glad youā€™re here!

        But if you feel the call to make art, just do it; do not let someone elseā€™s definition of talent limit what you dream for yourself.

        Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

          Paint your dreams

          Ravenous Wolves, oil on canvas, 24X30, $3,478.00 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

          I was fishing around on my desk and found an old Zoom class outline with a scrawled note that read, “paint your dreams.” Alas, I can’t remember the context or who said it, but it struck me as wise advice.

          What does “paint your dreams” even mean?

          “Paint your dreams” is used metaphorically to convey the idea of visualizing our aspirations and goals.

          When someone says “paint your dreams,” they’re encouraging you to articulate your dreams as a first step towards making them a reality. But here I’m talking about literal painting: a visual exploration of your hopes and dreams.

          I don’t think it would work for our nighttime dreams, which often have a menacing overtone. “I dream of painting and then I paint my dream,” Vincent van Gogh wrote. That was good for art, but possibly bad for his mental health. Anyways, most dreams are senseless to everyone but the dreamer. I can’t imagine they’d be more entertaining visually than they are when recounted over breakfast.

          That doesn’t mean we can’t paint with a dreamlike quality; Van Gogh and Marc Chagall were both masters at this. But I suspect my student meant we are supposed to paint our aspirations.

          Lonely Cabin, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, $652 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

          Do I even allow myself to dream?

          Most of us gussy up our dreams in practical terms: our bucket list. Worse, our dreams can be guilt-driven, like “spend more time with my elderly Mom.” Neither of these are gut dreams.

          It’s very hard for me to drill past that. I have a very satisfying life. I love my work, my family, and my church. Still, I have some things I’ve never made time for, including:

          • Recover my singing voice, which I’ve neglected for the past 35 years;
          • Learn to preach simply, logically, and convincingly;
          • Do more traveling just for fun.
          • Get strong enough to climb high peaks in a single bound.

          It’s easy to articulate our dreams when we’re young; it’s harder when we’ve lived some of them, disposed of some, and realized that others are unattainable. (My career as a ballerina was over before it started.) If this exercise goes no farther, it’s gotten me to articulate what my dreams are.

          Midnight at the Wood Lot, oil on archival canvasboard, $1449.00 framed includes shipping and handling within continental US.

          How would I paint those things?

          My friend and student Cassie Sano painted a pair of songbirds for my Advanced Painting class this week. (That class is full of bird people. This week we also had a raven discussion and some watercolor ducks.)

          Would painting birds help me regain my singing voice? Possibly, because when I first came to the Maine coast I painted boats, and now I get to teach on one annually. I’m painting a scene from my last long ramble in Britain right now. It’s making me excited for my next one, which will be in late May.

          Overall, though, I’m much more likely to draw my dreams, since I have notebooks filled with stream-of-consciousness visual ramblings.

          Winter lambing, oil on linen, 30X40, $5072 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

          What about you?

          Can you clearly define what you want to achieve in this life? If so, do you think you can paint that? Do you have the visual language to communicate and reinforce your goals?

          Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

            Monday Morning Art School: do you have a return policy?

            Seafoam, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed.

            “Have you written about original art sales being final?” a reader asked me this weekend. “Do you ever accept returns? If so, why or why not?”

            My late friend Gwendolyn used to regularly shop on what she called ‘The American Plan.” Gwendolyn wasn’t an abuser of the system; she didn’t wear clothes and then try to return them. Instead, she’d bring things home from the mall in a variety of sizes and colors, hoping her family would like something she’d selected. The rest would go back.

            Main Street, Owl’s Head, oil on archival canvasboard, $1623 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

            American retailing encourages this, with most sellers offering very liberal return policies. That makes sense for large corporations in the highly-competitive world of online consumer goods. It makes less sense for custom goods made by small workshops, like jewelers, painters, or seamstresses.

            Before you start selling paintings, you should think through your return policy, or you may be asked to do something you’re not willing to accommodate.

            Since I have a commerce-enabled website, Google requires that I have a clearly-articulated return policy for both my paintings and my workshops, which you can read here. Without it, Google won’t rank my website, which means nobody would ever see it.

            You determine what your policy is, but I think “no returns at any time, for any reason,” would be unreasonable. Art does occasionally arrive with damaged frames. Even though I always ship with insurance, it’s good customer relations to manage the repair or reimbursement myself.

            Apple Tree with Swing, 16X20, oil on archival canvasboard, $2029 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

            It’s devilishly difficult to photograph paintings. There’s inevitably some difference in color. A person with a very tight color scheme might realize the blue of my ocean doesn’t quite match their couch. I used to worry about this a lot, until I bought some wall paint online during COVID. My husband’s office is beautiful, but it’s not what I saw on my monitor. Nobody can manage color perfectly online because every screen shows color differently. (Then there’s airbrushing and photo enhancement. Although it doesn’t pertain to my paintings, most product photography is enhanced before we ever see it.)

            Having said that, I work hard to make accurate photos and I’ve never had a painting returned because it didn’t look like the photo.

            The buyer has more responsibility for paintings bought in my gallery or at an event. He or she has thumped the tires and understands the work’s physical presence. There is no reason for the same return policy in a bricks-and-mortar store but whatever it is, it should be posted.

            Beautiful Dream, oil on archival canvasboard, $1449 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

            I and many other gallerists will send a painting ‘on spec’ if asked. That means the customer pays for it up front (as a surety). If they decide they don’t want it, they pay for its return and insurance. The time limit for this must be clearly specified in advance. Two weeks is more than sufficient to realize a painting just doesn’t work.

            No matter what your return policy is, your long-term goal should be to keep your client. Start by asking why they want or need to return the item. Once you determine that, you can offer them a more appropriate product for purchase or exchange. For example, in the example I gave above, I’d show them my entire inventory of ocean paintings. (If they didn’t die of boredom, they’d be bound to find something that’s a better match.) Sometimes people simply can’t visualize size, and buy something that’s too small. If that’s the case, offer them a credit toward a larger one, and don’t be afraid to offer them layaway if the price scares them. A painting is a lifetime investment, and we want to do everything possible to help people able to afford art.

            Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

              Early Spring on Beech Hill

              Early Spring on Beech Hill, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas, 12X16, $1449 framed includes shipping in continental US.

              I climb up Beech Hill every day when I’m at home. It’s not very tall, just 533 feet above sea level, but that is set against the fact that I’m starting at 87 feet above sea level. I like this hike better in the summer, when warm breezes caress my face. I can watch the to-and-fro of sailboats from Rockland harbor and the margins of the blueberry barrens are a panoply of wildflowers. Midwinter isn’t quite as nice, although it is largely free of casual amblers. For the past two days it’s been cold and blustery, with gusts up to 45 MPH.

              The path is somewhat protected until you come around the hill to the final rise and there, you’re almost blown off your feet. That’s an improvement over some winters, when the wind has sculpted hip-high drifts with the consistency of concrete.

              The other approach to Beech Hill is somewhat steeper.

              On a glorious summer morning we will amble but these frigid winter temperatures make us hurry. We’re also in training to ramble in the Yorkshire Dales in May. Our best times for the 4.5-mile hike are just scant of 1:30:00; after that I must break into a jog-trot on the downhill slopes. However, yesterday we brought it in at 1:29:23. You might not be impressed, but that’s not bad for two senior citizens wearing crampons and skidding on ice. Excuse our short victory dance.

              I have many friendships that begin and end on that trail. We might stop and chat or just call out “good morning” as we sail by, but this time of year, the only people who are hiking are the true stalwarts. Yesterday, I saw Candace Kuchinski from the windjammer Angelique. She was out with her dog Nicki. “I have a painting of your boat on my easel,” I told her. I love living in a small town.

              Beautiful summer day on Beech Hill.

              People who don’t live in the north don’t realize how much color there is in a winter’s day, especially at the tail end of the season. The plants start to respond to the longer days and warmer sunlight. Early Spring, Beech Hill is all about that subtle color.

              The sod-roofed stone hut at the top was built in 1913-15 by Hans Heisted, a Norwegian immigrant. It was an American-style folly, designed for summer picnics for a wealthy local family. (When the trees are bare, you can just make out a stone well house in the same style on the south slope, but don’t wander down there-that part of the woods is home to porcupines and coyotes.) Its verandah faces the sea, and the short version is a popular tourist hike in summer. In early morning, in early spring, all creation is laid out below you. But my favorite view of it is as you come around the bend and see it peeking over the blueberry barrens, just as I painted it.

              Beech Nut in the fog.

              Today, Beech Hill Preserve is managed by Coastal Mountains Land Trust, making it accessible to all.

              Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

                Naughty trickster cinnamon fern

                This is a painting of a large cinnamon fern in the woods. Cinnamon Fern, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.
                Cinnamon Fern, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

                Cinnamon Fern was painted along the Boreal Life Trail at the Paul Smiths’ VIC in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks. It used to be called Bracken Fern, because there was a signposted stand of said ferns along the walk there. However, my friend Steve Johnson told me, “That’s either interrupted fern or cinnamon fern, but it’s not bracken fern.” Then my friend Heather’s father took me on a fern walk on the Round the Mountain Trail in Camden, ME. By the time we were done I could identify a half-dozen or more types of ferns, and I had to grudgingly agree with Steve. Bracken fronds branch out from a single stem. Here in the northeast, where ferns die back in winter, bracken doesn’t have the height or deep sweep of their Scottish kin. Either these were cinnamon ferns, or I can’t draw. The latter is simply ridiculous so I’ve renamed the painting.

                Some of my little fronds along the Round the Mountain Trail.

                I walk and paint the Boreal Life Trail every time I’m in the ADK. It combines many things I love: a distant mountain peak, balsam firs, tamaracks, and carnivorous plants. This stand of ferns waxes and wanes, but takes up at least a quarter acre, just where the bog touches the woods.

                In the fall, ferns are clothed in a wide variety of colors.

                While it’s always cool and green at that point, I felt the need to introduce some hot colors. It’s amazing how many colors you can throw at a monochromatic subject and still not lose the gist of it. Obviously, even cinnamon ferns are uniformly green, but I’ve made them an abstract riot of greens and peaches and pinks and teals. By raising the key and dropping the chroma in the background, I have tried to convey the steamy air of a bog in midsummer.

                Ferns reproduce asexually, which seems like a really bad idea to me.

                The only other thing I know about ferns is that a fiddlehead is just a furled young fern of any type. There are fiddleheads you can eat, and then there are fiddleheads you ought not, because they can be toxic. Cinnamon ferns are edible, bracken ferns are not… unless I have that backwards. As I’ve demonstrated my inability to tell ferns apart, I think I’ll stick with salad mix from Hannaford. Anyways, ferns are perennials; they need their frond-noses more than I do.

                Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

                  Pride goeth before a fall

                  Early Spring on Beech Hill, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas, 12X16, $1449 framed includes shipping in continental US.

                  On our way to Erickson Fields, my husband exclaimed, “We forgot our cleats! Should I go back?” I’d walked our usual 4.5-mile hill trek on Sunday and it wasn’t terrible. Besides, I was in a hurry.

                  The trails that converge on the top of Beech Hill are very popular. In the summer, that means you go as early as possible. In winter, foot traffic polishes the trails to a glossy finish. It was especially bad Monday morning; I’d made the wrong choice.

                  Athabasca Glacier, 14X18, oil on linen, $1275 includes shipping and handling in the continental US.

                  “It’s like walking on the Columbia Icefield, but worse,” I grumbled. But I’m an experienced old bird, and I carefully picked my way to the top.

                  “I managed to not fall,” I said gleefully as we crossed back into Erickson Fields. “In fact, I haven’t fallen one time this whole year.” Which was stupid, since it’s always the downhill slope that gets you. Sure enough, a second later I was flat on my back on the ice. To add insult to injury, I did it a second time. That kind of pain takes a day to kick in but 48 hours later, everything hurts, including my fingernails.

                  I had a very tight schedule. I would work with Laura (my IT and PR person) until 2, take a break to paint woodwork until 4, and then set up a demo for my Zoom class on color bridges. We have new furniture coming for our guest room, and this house has never had the upstairs floors properly painted in its 125 years of existence. Thrifty New Englanders, they left the parts covered by area rugs as raw wood, with painted borders like monks’ tonsures.  I reckoned that if I did the woodwork on Monday, above the chair rail Tuesday night, below on Wednesday, and the floor on Thursday, I’d finish it just under my self-imposed deadline.

                  Mountain Path, oil on archival canvasboard, 11X14, $1087.00 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

                  “I can’t handle this pace,” I told myself, and then stopped and berated myself for being so negative. “Of course I can. I’m not tired and everything’s ticking along like clockwork.”

                  That’s when I got a message from a student in my new drawing class, which meets Mondays, 1-4. “I’ll be ready as soon as I get this cat off my lap,” she wrote.

                  “What?” I spluttered. “We don’t start until next week-do we?”

                  Turns out that the class, for which I’d done no marketing and no prep, did indeed start on Monday. Pride goeth before a fall, indeed.

                  Drawing is the bedrock on which painting rests, and if you can’t draw, you’ll have a hard time painting. I’m teaching this class because I need my painting students to be good draftsmen. I’ve got the four students I’d earmarked as needing it, but there’s still a lot of open space. If you think you’d benefit, I’m prorating the fee and making the video from Week 1 available, so you won’t miss anything. Our subjects are:

                  • Basic measurement
                  • Perspective
                  • Volume and form
                  • Drapery and clothing
                  • Drawing the human face
                  • Trees and rocks

                  You can register here.

                  Winter lambing, oil on linen, 30X40, $5072 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

                  Critique

                  Before I forget, I’m also offering a four-week critique class starting on February 19. Your job is to paint during the week, and our mutual job is to analyzing our work based on the standard canon of design elements. This is not a touchy-feely class in any way; it’s meant to give you the tools to analyze your own paintings without falling victim to your emotions. I’ve taught this many times and my students have always been polite, enthusiastic and supportive, so there’s no reason to be nervous.

                  You can register here.

                  Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

                    Happy New Year!

                    Happy New Year, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 framed.

                    As I look at this painting through the mists of time, I wonder when was the last time I stayed up until midnight on a New Year’s Eve. No matter what the text on the painting page says, it’s 35 years if it’s a day. Now, I’m frankly too old to party except with my grandchildren, whose bedtimes are not much later than mine.

                    Said grandchildren (and their parents) are here for New Year’s Eve. This weekend, my other children will arrive so we can celebrate Christmas and the New Year together.

                    The beads in this painting came from Mardi Gras in New Orleans, brought back by my friend Karolina. The hat and noisemaker were left in my studio by a student, then a teenager, now pushing middle age. And the purple velvet and feather boa? They are mine alone. As ratty as I look while painting, I do like bling on occasion.

                    My favorite part of this painting is the gold lettering on the hat. If I didn’t point out that it read “Happy New Year” would you notice?

                    This is the last weekend that you can take December discounts. They are:

                    • 10% off any painting, with the code THANKYOUPAINTING10.
                    • $25 off any workshop except Sedona, with the code, EARLYBIRD

                    Believe it or not, Sedona and Austin are right around the corner!

                    Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025: